Faux Aging with Fish Sauce/Salt

This post is not exactly new but specific to Fish-Sauce/Salt faux aging. And of course, it's been updated too. Here is the link to the original post where I combined Faux Aging with Warm-Aging using 4 steaks as my canvas. A lot of details if you are interested. 

That's right; you're looking at Fish Sauce/Salt in the pictures. Drum roll, please…. 

Fish Sauce/Salt will create/simulate a tender piece of meat or, more accurately, simulate a dry-aged steak with robust beefiness. "Why." I will try to give you my non-Scientific reason why this works. It's all about the Glutamates (natural MSG), which are savory compounds, and your tongue loves them. They make all cooked protein taste good. 

Fish sauce and Worcestershire sauce contain anchovies (more in fish sauce) and a nucleotide compound. Nucleotides plus glutamates mean over-the-top awesome beefy goodness. 

So whether it's Soy, Worcestershire, or fish sauce, the glutamate component plus the nucleotide found in anchovies will amp up the taste of beef and give it that UMAI boost of flavor. The salt in these ingredients will also help denature the protein making it more tender. 

Do you ever wonder why recipes like stews, chili, or beef stir-frys include these types of sauces? It's an ingredient called for in a recipe with no explanation, but if you want to amp up the flavor, they're a must. 

Let me get this question out of the way before proceeding. Does it taste Fishy? It smells clean and very beefy when it comes out of the bag.

So how do you do Faux Age? Since the writing of the original post, I've faux-aged beef at least 200 times. 

 Which brands are the best? You can use any brand you want, but I am a massive fan of Red-Boat products. 

If you are using fish sauce, I suggest starting out with 1.75%. Some use 3%, but I have found that 3% is way too high for me after many trials. Depending on the thickness, I like to use 1.75-2.25%. If it's a thin piece of meat, go with 1.75% to start out with. What is thick? Over 1.5 inches or more. How do you compute percentages? 

To make life easier, and to be precise, you must use grams. 

If the protein weighs 1000 grams and you want 1%, it's a matter of multiplication. 

1000 grams x 1% = 10 or 1000 grams x .01 = 10 grams. 

How to apply? Use gloves!!!!!! Brush on the fish sauce and Vac Seal. If you have a chamber vac, this is easy peasy. If you have a pull vac sealer, use caution because some of the sauce can be sucked up into the machine. If you a food-saver type machine I would suggest the following. Brush on the sauce and place it in a plastic container that is just large enough to hold the protein. Rotate meat and smush around containers every 12 hours. Do this over 72 hours. You just need to wait out the 72 hours in a vac bag. Before you send me several questions about other techniques…..don't….I've done it several ways, and I have found this to be the best and easiest. 

Now on to the Fish Salt. As of this writing, I believe that Red-Boat only carries the Salt version, and I only use 1%. Also, I prefer Fish Salt to the Sauce version. Rub the fish salt all over the meat and vac seal for 72 hours. Here's an experiment I ran to see what the preference was. 

NOTE: DO NOT RINSE OFF ANYTHING.

NOTE: Brush or Sprinkle on both sides (Top, bottom, and sides) of the protein, getting it into every nook and cranny. 

IF YOU ARE DOING A LARGE PIECE OF MEAT, YOU WILL NEED 4-6 DAYS. 

DO NOT AIR DRY IN THE REFRIGERATOR. 

How to cook your steak? The same way you did it before you read this post. Do not add any additional salt. 

HERE IS MY LIST OF ALL MY EXPERIMENTS 

Here's a link where I compared 5 Fish Products!!!! And the winner is?